Hola! I've taken a long break from Reddit, and I spent a lot of that time crafting, lol. I bought myself a vintage PC Josefina doll almost exactly a year ago, and I recently started making more things for her than ever before. I'm not Latinx, Hispanic, or indigenous and hope that my deep appreciation and respect for Spanish, Mexican, and Native American cultures show through in my crafting. I hope that anyone who would like to share their criticism with me feels comfortable doing so, either in the comments or through direct message.
My Josefina doll came with most of her meet outfit (although I needed to replace the strings on her moccasins), and at a craft fair last summer I found that small leather pouch to replace her bag. I recently found the belt thrifting and cut it down to size. The scrap leather journal and paper flower came from a local gift shop (a nod to her mother's favorite flower, yellow primrose). I sewed the rebozo (shawl) on the ground from a thrifted kurta, and made a skirt and blanket from it, too. On that, we have tortillas de harina and maiz (flour and corn tortillas), a loaf of pan de cruz (cross bread), a salt box (which I made from scrap wood, and not very well lol), a queso de cabra (goat cheese) with cheesecloth and wedge, a small majolica jug (a gift someone brought me from a vacation to Mexico), a ristra (a large hanging bundle of dried chiles), squash and bean tamales (made with real corn husk), two onions, carne seca (dried meat, like small sheets of jerky), and dried squash rings. I made all the food out of polymer clay and finished most of it with acrylic paint and ;polyurethane sealant. The gourd vessels I made by drying real miniature decorative gourds from this fall in the laundry closet over the winter, then carefully cutting them open and scraping them out with a craft knife. (Be very careful if you try that! It was fun but also like working with eggshell, and I nicked myself once.) I found the miniature cast iron cookware at a flea market, and know it's not entirely period-accurate. I sanded and stained the wooden spoon that came with a face scrub to look a little less contemporary and more used. I made the 'adobe' horno (oven) out of terra cotta clay in my ceramics class and marked it with black chalk pastel for soot; the kindling bundle is more corn husk.
I am so insanely excited and happy with how everything is coming along. I know not everything is entirely period accurate, but I’ve tried my best to get as close as I can. I have a bunch of pottery in the works to make her little dishes, too! I have a few wooden items that are almost done (like the pala de panadero, the bread paddle/peel used with the oven) and am also working on a bed and bedding. At some point I'll definitely be sewing her more clothes, too, from the PC patterns.
The big world is a lot right now, and it's been a privilege and a relief to focus on creating a small, safe one. (I have also been engaging in direct actions near me as my health permits and make a monthly donation to a local nonprofit which provides legal aid to immigrants.) I hope this makes a lot of people here happy, too.